COTE D’AZUR SPA’S
ANCIENT HEALING CONCEPTS SHINE
WHOLE NEW LIGHT ON WELLNESS
By Stacey Kumagai
Today’s metro lifestyle has become a manic, crazy, noisy and busy one: endless traffic, cell phones, Blackberry and Palms, email, eating on-the-run and stressful demands. It’s bound to take its toll on the human body, psyche and spirit. While most of us count our days until vacation, we need to realize that sometimes at the pace we are going, our minds and bodies cannot wait that long and we are doing further damage to our well-being. But just imagine…opening the door to Cote d’Azur Spa, relaxing with a refreshing citrus-cucumber beverage, and decompressing into a peaceful and harmonic place for a whole new world and a whole new you. It’s not just a spa, it’s a lifestyle transformation holistic healing center. Here you can reclaim your center back to well-being, and return with clarity, knowledge and enlightenment, literally feel like a whole new person.
Native American Carolyn Jacques, owner of Cote d’Azur had a vision to artistically blend healing arts into getting back in touch with all of your senses…” Our space focuses on balance over outward beauty. There’s no Botox or chemical treatments. We use stone, herbs, aromatherapy, sound and other basic resonance tools to help create a vibration in the person’s space that is more balanced for them,” states Jacques. Whether you have only 15 minutes for their Tea Break massage, or an hour or all day, Cote d’Azur’s long list of services are unique and specialized. From a Tibetan foot soak, or a Phyto Pumpkin Enzyme Peel Facial
Along with their many healing therapies and treatments ranging from massages and facials to Aura Photography, where you can tap into the energy fields around your face and body…. Cote d’Azur has much more customization to cater to a client’s special needs.
The expert healers they have on staff include an acupuncturist who specializes in face lifts; a holistic therapist who offers mindfulness classes; Yoga and Pilates instruction; a Lifestream Technician who helps alleviate pain and speeds up healing (especially helpful to athletes for injuries/breaks) and Tribal Healers who
clear past life trauma for emotional relief and clarity and many others.
The Indigo series is Cote d’Azur’s signature service, incorporating holistic therapies. Indigo refers to the ‘third eye chakra’ which enables intuitiveness. This series incorporates acupressure placement and energy balancing, along with aromatherapy where clients get to choose from seven distinct blends of aromas . According to Jacques, the body holds trauma, memory and emotions. “Depending on what kind of stressors and memories are being stored, we may have to focus on different energy centers, body parts, meridians and such that can allow these discordant bits of stored information to leave the body,” she explains.
Many spa packages are available which make Cote d’Azur Spa unique. You can Escape to Shangri la and be whisked away into the energizing and Vitamin A & C infused treatment of lemonade and ginger or Escape to Sedona while being covered in blue corn scrub used by Native Americans and covered in Red Sedona clay to detox your body with a hot stone massage. Or you can Escape to Machu Picchu with aromas of coffee, chocolate as you eliminate toxins and conclude your experience with a Yerbe Mate tea finish using silver bombillas and mate gourds from Argentina. Other “Escapes” include an Asian-inspired Majestic Escape featuring hot rice placement and silk hand treatment and a Marrakesh escape which includes Moroccan Razul clay and dead sea salts.
Physical trainers and athletes understand the need for massage because of muscle soreness. While most people are familiar with massage as only something from a day spa, vacation or perhaps physical therapy after an accident, Cote d’Azur is trying to educate and enlighten people about its necessary function within a person’s lifestyle. “Massage isn’t something that an essential tool for overall wellness because it helps to break down body salts and toxins stored in the body,” states Jacques. “When someone works out and is sore a couple of days later, it’s because they didn’t get enough oxygen during their workout, lactic acid in the muscles cause the soreness-massage crushes out salts and toxins which cause crunchies and knots,” Jacques clarifies.
New things are happening all the time at Cote d’Azur Spa. Their newest featured additions include an onsite hypnotherapist, energy-work and new products. One of their product highlights include a heat-relief scarf which incorporates aromatherapy. This light cotton gauze scarf can be either hand or machine washed and has weathered glass beads with beautiful colors, which are derived from herbs and tea in a neutral cream-to-yellowish chamomile hue. Both men and women can wear this as Cote d’Azur has these scarves scented in sportier scents for active people. The aromatherapy blends incorporate a healthful and healing benefit, aside from just smelling wonderful. “The original blend is vetiver, clary sage, and lavender, which is amazing for the skin softening with a very subtle scent that's clearing for the mind; like a light fresh fragrance of black tea. The 'sporty blend' for men or athletic ladies, is made with eucalyptus, rosemary, and lavender. It has a more vigorous scent and helps with breathing functions and is stimulating,” states Jacques.
Cote d’Azur spa also sells seaweed detox products you can use at home. They are helping people lose weight with this recent addition to their already long list of items which are healthful and beneficial. According to Jacques, seaweed works like a sponge that draws toxins out of the system which simultanouesly feeds the system. She mentions that the seaweed soak is used much like a water ritual which you can soak in and the blend consists of bladderwrack, green tea, ginger and cardamom.
For those not familiar with the healing properties of these herbs, Bladderwrack is a form of kelp, high in iodine, which stimulates the thyroid gland and has been known to help with everything from arthritis to breaking down cellulite. Cardamom detoxes the body and boosts metabolism, cleanses the kidneys and bladder. Green tea has antioxidant benefits to help the body’s immunity and ginger energizes and helps with circulatory disorders. "The seaweed draws out toxins through the skin and flushes the body with amino acids and nutrients. After 3 soaks I noticed a visible difference in my legs. It was getting rid of cellulite,” declares Jacques.
Cote d’Azur does Henna Parties to address 80% of the body’s pressure points below the knee, elbow and above the neck in an economical way for the community to come together for fully clothed group setting fun with world music, world food and world traditions in the heart of Pasadena. This extension of the healing center is just another way Jacques increases insight to how powerful the healing arts can be. “I hope my clients walk away from the Cote d’Azur experience with an understanding that our body holds emotions, that our thoughts become things and that with simple tools we can be in better mastery of our own lives,” concludes Jacques.
Cote d’Azur Spa. Incorporating a little Zen in a lot of healing ways.
Cote d’Azur Spa is located at 74 N. Fair Oaks Avenue in Pasadena. 626.396.3030
For more information go to www.cotedazurspa.com